Research & reports

Robert B. Stevenson, Gregory A. Smith · · Global

This paper discusses professional learning opportunities for teachers regarding outdoor environmental pedagogy. These opportunities include resource materials, formal experience-based workshops at centers, informal observations and discussions, and collaborative curriculum planning with center educators. Various methods, such as creating school gardens and engaging in green school activities, are presented to alert students to the importance of reinhabitation.

Kristin Reynolds · International Journal of Food Design · United States (New York City)

Farm School NYC, an adult education program in New York City, was examined as an example of radical innovation in urban agriculture education for social justice. Based on research conducted between 2013 and 2014, the program uses critical pedagogy and popular education to train adult students in urban farming, social justice advocacy, and teaching skills. A network of urban agriculture practitioners, educators, and activists created this community-based training program, which infuses radical visions of social change into its daily educational activities.

ANTONIO JOSE CHAGUENDO DORADO, Sandra Morales Velasco, Fabio Alonso Prado Cerón · Biotecnología en el Sector Agropecuario y Agroindustrial · Colombia (Popayán)

A study in Popayán's Comuna 2 evaluated PET bottle urban agriculture practices, examining two crops (cilantro and lettuce) and three bottle orientations (horizontal, vertical, 45-degree inclined). Agronomic variables like height, coverage, vigor, and biomass were analyzed using SPSS 22. Results showed that vertical bottles yielded better production in terms of vigor and fresh weight for both species, attributed to the relationship between container size and root development.

Natália Gebrim Dória, Denise Eugênia Pereira Coelho, Mariana Tarricone Garcia, Helena Akemi Wada Watanabe, Cláudia Maria Bógus · DEMETRA Alimentação Nutrição & Saúde · Global

This study aimed to analyze a school garden as a health promotion strategy from the students' perspective. Forty-nine students aged 10-11 years participated, using a draw-and-tell method to illustrate and report on their experiences in the school garden. Analysis of these reports identified categories related to Health Promotion principles such as equity, social participation, empowerment, sustainability, and personal skills development, as well as Nutrition Education and Food and Nutrition Security.

Carl E. Taylor, Elizabeth B. Symon, Amy Dabbs, Alexander Way, Olivia M. Thompson · HortTechnology · United States

An online survey of 37 educators (36% response rate) in South Carolina, who completed a school gardening training course between 2012-2015, assessed a pilot farm-to-school initiative. The study found that most educators were unaware their garden was part of the initiative, and gardens were not integrated with school-wide programs, particularly cafeteria meals. However, most educators maintained their gardens for over a year and used them for academic instruction.

Bogumiła Staniów · Roczniki Biblioteczne · Poland

This article discusses the "Young Michurinist Library" series, popular science books about nature for children and young people published in post-war Poland from 1953 to 1956. The books in this series provided readers with information on plants, animals, and amateur husbandry, alongside elements of communist ideology. They aimed to disseminate Michurinism and teach pupils how to cultivate crops, maximize the use of available plants, and enrich their diet with easily managed farm animals, often through fictionalized stories.

Gayle Mallinger, Molly Kerby · Reflections: Narratives of Professional Helping (Click on Current or Archives; Registration Optional) · United States (Kentucky)

This narrative describes a three-year community garden project at the Boys & Girls Club in a semi-rural Kentucky city, addressing disparities in access to fresh produce, education, and food programs in poverty-stricken neighborhoods. Participants engaged in preparing garden sites, planting seeds, and harvesting vegetables through a Junior Master Gardener program.

Shearen Hariono · Intra · Global

This interior design project for a primary school aims to facilitate learning activities, including environmental care, by implementing a green building concept. The design incorporates green activities such as a school garden to educate children aged 6-12 about the environment. Based on greenship interior space version 1.0 parameters, this primary school design achieved a gold rating with 74 points and a percentage of 71.8%.

Katiuscia Maria Da Silva · Revista ComSertões · Brazil

This article reflects on the concept of "place" by observing its re-significations from modern geography, which established new relationships between humans and their environment. It discusses perceptions observed "in loco" based on theoretical foundations, analyzing the Povo Unido Community Garden. The study aims to capture the meanings of place that permeate humanistic geography and define the human-place relationship within this space.

Richie Roberts, Jon W. Ramsey · Journal of Agricultural Education · United States

This study explored the lived experiences of urban agricultural educators in the United States to understand the essence of their meaning in work. The essence emerged as a "Black Swan" metaphor, representing their distinctiveness in agricultural education, guided by individualization, self-connection, contribution, unification, and coping abilities. These educators appeared to cope with challenges through transcendence, possibly due to serving a distinct population largely comprised of ethnic minority students in low socioeconomic households.

Rachel A. Clare, J. S. Jenkins, Debbie Humphries · The FASEB Journal · United States (New Haven, CT)

In 2016 in New Haven, CT, USA, a 16-week urban agriculture-based wellness program was evaluated for 73 low-income individuals with multiple risk factors for diabetes. The program aimed to increase fruit and vegetable consumption and decrease diabetes risk factors. Among the 30 participants with complete data after program completion, daily vegetable servings increased to an average of 2.1, but daily fruit servings decreased to 1.5.

Camila Bevilaqua · Ponto Urbe · Brazil (São Paulo)

Fieldwork in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, accompanied three indigenous people from "Aldeia Vertical." Since 2016, these individuals have been developing a community garden in the Complexo de Favelas do São Carlos. The garden is constructed as a space for "dissemination of indigenous culture" through relationships involving bodies, food, and techniques. The study focused on the relationships between "culture" and "learning" as established by these individuals, dialoguing with Amerindian ethnology and Afro-indigenous approaches.

Rosalina Almendras · Language arts journal of Michigan · Canada

This project, part of ‘Empowering Growth’, partnered with the Ottawa Juvenile Detention Center (OCJDC) to build a community garden and assess information technology (IT) for improving gardening outcomes. It evaluated available technological tools for gardening and proposed developing a custom web-based garden application for OCJDC, offering planning and tracking capabilities. A prototype of the application was designed to identify specific needs of residents and staff.

Andrea Oyuela, Arnold van der Valk · Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems · Honduras (Tegucigalpa)

This study questions the adequacy of Tegucigalpa's top-down planning system in Honduras and explores urban agriculture (UA) as a potential building block for a bottom-up strategy. While UA is organized in Tegucigalpa due to residents' need to overcome food insecurity and hardship, the concept of active citizenship and bottom-up development is not yet consolidated. Furthermore, challenges exist regarding the resources needed for practicing UA and the diffusion of knowledge to the population.

Pepijn Schreinemachers, Dhruba Raj Bhattarai, Giri Dhari Subedi, Tej P. Acharya, Hsiao-pu Chen, Ray-Yu Yang, Narayan Kaji Kashichhawa, Upendra Dhungana, Gregory C. Luther, Maureen Mecozzi · Journal of Development Effectiveness · Nepal

This study evaluated the combined impact of school gardens and nutrition education on 10- to 15-year-old schoolchildren in Nepal, using a cluster randomized controlled trial with 1275 students (2014) and 785 students (2015). After one year, significant improvements were observed in children's awareness of fruits and vegetables, knowledge of sustainable agriculture, food, nutrition, and health, and stated preferences for eating fruits and vegetables. However, these improvements in intermediary outcomes did not translate into significant improvements in fruit and vegetable consumption or nutritional status.

Devon A. Mihesuah · American Indian Culture and Research Journal · United States

In Oklahoma, tribes have initiated numerous food projects over the past three decades aimed at achieving food sovereignty. However, Oklahoma's complex history, environmental issues, and current politics present challenges such as uneven food quality, poor indigenous health, intratribal factionalism, racism, and a stark dichotomy of affluence and extreme poverty. These factors complicate the creation of self-sufficient food systems and the reconnection of tribal members with traditional foodways.

강현경, 백승준 · · South Korea

This study conducted in South Korea investigated the effect of an urban agriculture experience program on the mental health of seniors over 65 years old. The experiment group, who participated in the program for over six months, showed statistically significantly lower stress scores related to loneliness and lower health-related stress levels compared to the control group, while the control group exhibited significantly higher depression levels. Urban agriculture activities were shown to stabilize sympathetic nerves and activate parasympathetic nerves in the elderly, increasing resistance against stress.

Donovon Ceaser · Ethnography & Education · Global

This study analyzed the leadership of founder John Browne at Green Shoots, a nonprofit service-learning urban farming school established in 2010, using the theory of founder's syndrome. Browne, despite an openly egalitarian community of practice ethic, created a hierarchy at the school that led to a staff walk-out and subsequent firings. Findings revealed Browne as a charming and inspirational teacher who engaged in dominating leadership contradicting the community of practice's ideals, resulting in disrespected students, disillusioned staff, and a founder unable to take responsibility for his leadership.

Suryani Suryani, Reni Nurjasmi, Siti M. Sholihah, Ayu Vandira Candra Kusuma · Jurnal Pelayanan dan Pengabdian Masyarakat (Pamas) · Indonesia

A community service program in Ceger Village, Indonesia, provided training and outreach on urban agricultural technology to 39 members of farmer groups and community representatives. The program aimed to raise awareness of urban farming's importance, optimize narrow urban land use, and facilitate knowledge of cultivation techniques. Participants responded positively, and the program offered solutions for leisure time and family food security.

John Diaz, Sue Webb, Laura A. Warner, Paul Monoghan · HortTechnology · Global

This study demonstrated the use of a Delphi approach with a diverse panel of community garden stakeholders to reach consensus about program outcomes for community garden programs. The panel successfully reached consensus on a variety of short-, medium-, and long-term outcomes. The study aimed to provide a framework for program development and evaluation that stakeholders can adopt to show program outcomes, addressing the difficulty of learning lessons from geographically specific community garden studies.

Joice Zagna Valent, Letí­cia de Oliveira, Vinicius Dornelles Valent · DRd - Desenvolvimento Regional em debate · Brazil

This descriptive study aimed to describe a social urban agriculture project in a community located in Canoas, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Through a literature review and a semi-structured interview with the project coordinator, it was shown that urban agriculture possesses social, economic, ecological, and symbolic dimensions beyond food production. The study concluded that various projects developed around urban food cultivation, with main impacts including the promotion of food security, generation of employment and income, environmental management, social integration, and development of human capital.

Fabienne Charraire · · France (Paris)

Shared gardens are a form of small, collective gardens, often urban, inherited from workers' gardens. Their purpose extends beyond mere gardening, serving as places of social life, often with educational and festive aims, open to all. These gardens are typically managed by an association on temporarily or permanently occupied land.

Izquierdo Acosta, Daniel Francisco · · Colombia (Bogotá)

This study examined five urban agriculture experiences in Bogotá, Colombia, focusing on productivity (species richness and market prices), resource use and management (water, energy, land, waste), and human organizational forms. The research aims to make these contexts known to farmers and academia, providing insights for better implementation of urban agriculture.

Neil Taylor, Abdulla Ambusaidi, Rashid Al‐Yahyai, Subhashni Taylor · Eurasia Journal of Mathematics Science and Technology Education · Oman

A pilot school gardening project in Oman, using a mixed-method quasi-experimental design with Grade 7 classes, investigated its impact. Quantitative findings tentatively suggest improved learning outcomes in science skill development. Qualitative findings indicated a positive impact on students' affective domain and, in some cases, encouraged healthier eating habits.

Dorothy Kass · · Australia

This chapter examines sources related to teaching nature study in schools. A few years before the 1904 syllabus introduction in New South Wales, most teachers were unfamiliar with nature study, and inspectors were skeptical about elementary science in state schools. Richmond Public School offers an example of nature study in practice, though its situation was unique.